Halo: Shooting Stars
by GrimlyFiendish
Summary: The Covenant seem to be very interested in what appears to be a big chunk of empty space. The human ships following them are about to find out just how empty this space really is. Written with Screamin' Lord Byron. Please read and review :D
1. Up 'til Now

_This was originally on Screamin' Lord Byron's account, but he wanted to write his own prequel story and we thought it would be better if this one was on my account. Reviews are very much appreciated :)_

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><p>Commander Samuel T. Pascoe made sacrifices to win battles that could otherwise not be won; he always gave his all to the fight at hand. He made a few mistakes in his lifetime. Such as the time when he lost seven ships to a Covenant Flagship and two cruisers. All the ships did was stall the Covenant forces for a few seconds. That battle was over quickly. Another one was the fight for the planet Paris IV. There was that one call that cost him almost the whole fleet. When he was the Commanding officer of the U.N.S.C. Vladimir, he fired a MAC slug that almost hit Admiral Mirad's ship about 2.5 km ahead. Luckily, the actions of Admiral Mirad, who as most would say, <em>'Screeched to a halt'<em>, the slug missed the Admirals ship and went right through a Covenant Assault Carrier. There was no harm done, but Pascoe was demoted to the rank of Captain, because of bad judgement. Although he thought that this was lucky as his punishment could have been much more severe.

After this, he helped win some of the more major battles, commanding a weapons station for Archer missiles. He eventually got re-promoted to his former rank of Commander, and was sent to Reach in 2551 to find a surprise waiting for him; A new ship and a crew. The ship was a Frigate named Deathrod. It earned its name during construction, when the MAC cannon was being placed, one of the holster's hydraulic systems was under-pressurized. The monster cannon slipped, detaching itself from the holster, it swung around and killed about a quarter of the men working on the rest of the ship. With the cannon's long cylindrical shape, the name Deathrod suited well.

He, his ship and crew won many battles since. He had grown more intelligent and wiser in the battlefield; this had a great improvement on his service record. He developed greatly in confidence and skill, all within the space of three years.

X

_Year 2554_

The U.N.S.C. Frigate, Deathrod, was cut down to little power, by a Covenant Super Carrier. The Carrier, along with eight cruisers, three Corvettes and about five dozen Seraph fighters took out almost their entire fleet. The Deathrod, with the Destroyers Armageddon, commanded by First Lieutenant Carl Hall and its sister ship the Demonstrator, commanded by Admiral Marcus Harvey, were the only ones left.

The three surviving ships were lucky to endure such an attack. The brutality of the Covenant's attack seemed to be unnecessary, as there wasn't anything past the fleet for them to be interested in. The fleet was 'guarding' empty space.

They came to two conclusions. The first was that the Covenant ships were on the run from something; the second was that they knew something was out there, and they wanted it. They decided to act upon their second conclusion.

They decided to put all of their resources in the two stronger ships out of the three; these were the Deathrod and the Armageddon. Both of their reactors were close to the same at 93% and 95% and climbing. Both had a lot of grunt and firepower left in them and more hull integrity. With these two ships, they would follow the Covenant forces to find out just what was so damned important.


	2. First Contact

Chapter 2

The U.N.S.C. ships Deathrod and Armageddon entered Slipspace in pursuit of the Covenant ships that had torn through their fleet so viciously, seemingly searching for something in unknown space. Admiral Marcus Harvey of the U.N.S.C. Demonstrator, along with the remainder of its crew, was forced to erase all data from the mainframe and evacuate the ship. The crew split up into the two remaining ships while the Admiral boarded the Deathrod.

As the three ship's commanding officers discussed their current circumstances, the Deathrod's A.I. Shan, picked up an unidentifiable ship that had recently dropped out of Slipspace. It had been heading in the opposite direction before it stopped; from the middle of unchartered space.

Shan had a female form and wore a worn out, blue, checked, button-up shirt and faded brown cargo pants. She had an Australian accent, was very humorous and had a knack for talking a lot.

Shan appeared from her small pad near the main view screen and briefed the three commanding officers of the anomaly. It was decided that the Armageddon would continue on with its present course, while the Deathrod would go back to investigate the unidentified ship.

X

The crew of the Battleship Halberd was in the bridge, discussing the situation at hand. They had not been aware of the existence of a fleet of ships that dwarfed even the Halberd in size; however they had just been passed by exactly that. No one had been able to identify where the ships had come from, but they did know one thing, they were headed straight for Pop Star.

While his loyal followers bounced ideas across the bridge, Meta Knight, commander of the Halberd silently considered their options. They had no real objective out here, in the middle of nowhere; their only reason for being out here was that they had wanted to check that the reactor was in top shape for deep space travel. There hadn't been much in the way of trouble lately, so the ship hadn't been put through any real tests, although it had proved itself more than capable. If the strange fleet of ships meant trouble for Pop Star, it was their duty to give chase.

When Meta Knight voiced this conclusion, the rest of them agreed. He was about to give the order to turn around when two more ships passed by. They were headed after the first group, but didn't seem to be a part of it; the difference in appearances made that obvious.

The Halberd was about to head off as well, when one of the ships came back.

X

The unidentifiable ship came into view of the Deathrod's bridge. Pascoe had seen nothing like this before. He was astounded by the ship that sat in front of them. It didn't look like the Covenant, nor did the U.N.S.C. own anything like this.

The shape of its body looked like a cross between an old aircraft carrier and a bowling pin on its side. The ship was primarily grey, it had a purple undercarriage and the same colour was used for two pairs of wings further towards the back of the ship. These wings looked like they had no place on a star ship; rather they looked like they belonged to a _very_ large bat. Both sides of the vessel were lined with single barrelled machine guns, like the cannons on a pirate ship. On the deck it had a large weapon with two parts; the top section looked like it fired something big, maybe even an actual cannonball. It was impossible to tell what the lower, base section fired. Next to it was a long, extendable arm with a large three digit claw on the end of it.

"Admiral Harvey, we should make contact," Pascoe stated.

"We should wait and see what they do first," the Admiral replied, without hesitation.

"But if we wait, they could either leave or blow us to bits, we should try to contact them," Pascoe protested.

"May I interrupt?" Shan appeared from her pad in front of the two. "I agree with Commander Samuel, sir. If we don't make the first move, they might do it, and their move may not be quite as negotiable as ours."

"Fine, open up a communication line," Harvey compromised. "If they don't respond in a positive manner we need to be ready."

"Right, Shan get everyone prepped for battle and bring weapons systems online. Try to open a link with that other ship," Pascoe ordered.

"Yes sir, Commander."

X

"Sor meh nigh, der kin contact," informed a green armoured crew member at the console.

"Thank you Blade, let us hear what they have to say," Meta Knight replied. Blade opened the communication link at their end, allowing the occupants of the other ship to speak.

"_This is Commander Samuel T. Pascoe, commanding officer of the U.N.S.C. Deathrod,"_ the speaker blared. _"Please identify yourself and your intentions or we will be forced to consider you hostile."_ The crew looked around the room to each other, taking in what this Commander had to say.

"They mustn't be hostile, if they're askin' us," determined a taller, turquoise one, "Although the 'Deathrod' does sound pretty sinister."

"It would not be wise to come to that conclusion, Sword." Meta Knight cautioned, "That might depend upon our answer," He nodded to Captain Vul, "Which we had better do."

"Right away, Sir," Vul acknowledged and pressed the controls that would allow him to speak back to the other ship.

X

"Sir, they're responding," Shan spoke up, much to the relief of the bridge.

"Patch 'em through," Pascoe requested.

"Yes sir," She said as she disappeared into her pad to fulfil his request.

The voice coming from the other ship sounded rather up himself, _"Well, I'm Captain Vul, and this is the Battleship Halberd."_ Pascoe could have sworn that the voice belonged to a parrot, _"We intend to uncover the plot of all these strange ships on their way to Pop Star."_

The two commanding officers shared a glance before Pascoe asked the all-important question, "So, Captain Vul, you're not a part of the Covenant?"

_"Covenant of what? We are the great Meta-Knights of Dreamland."_

It was relieving to know that the ship in front of them claimed to have nothing to do with the Covenant, although it was surprising, if not doubtful, that they had never heard of it.

Harvey thought this was a 'likely' story, "This is Admiral Marcus Harvey. You mean to tell me that you've never heard of those alien bastards who nearly wiped out humanity, on multiple occasions?" He was one of the few who still hadn't warmed up to the idea of joining forces with the Elites; he didn't trust anyone not of the human race.

X

"What's Humanity?" an orange, spherical little creature wearing a sailor hat inquired.

"Do you think they're hostile now?" a small, pitchfork wielding knight asked the bridge, looking pointedly at Vul.

"Well then _you_ tell me what this 'Covenant' is, I got no idea," Vul retorted.

"I think we need to sort this out," Meta Knight settled, "We need to understand all of what's going on here because it looks like we're going to become a part of it. We need to meet in person."


	3. Meet The MetaKnights

Captain Vul of the Halberd had requested that they meet face-to-face. Admiral Harvey had not been happy with this. It seemed that the only way to do it was for a small group to fly to the Halberd in a Pelican, this was because there was no way for the two ships to link up. Commander Pascoe would take a group consisting of four marines and two elites with him to the Halberd.

As the small troop ship came within 50 metres of the Halberd's hanger door it started to open. The large door swung down like a ramp to reveal only darkness, and the Pelican came to land within.

As they gradually got inside the hanger, they got a better view of the interior. It had a very mechanical feel to it; everything was made of metal, from the panels along the walls, to the grating on the floors, and the exposed pipes running all over the ceiling. The hanger was empty of all other vehicles with the exception of what looked like a huge mechanical lobster.

The Pelicans rear doors held for a moment until the all clear of air pressurizing was complete. The four marines hopped out of the back, and surveyed the empty hanger with shouldered rifles. The two Elites stepped down in a sort of crouch, avoiding hitting their heads on the bar above the crafts door. Pascoe had imagined that they would have been met here by a collection of the crew, but no such welcome party existed.

"Well this place looks pretty empty" one of the marines noted.

"I guess nobody's home," another observed.

"Don't assume anything Lieutenant," Pascoe ordered, "we don't know what these guys look like or anything." At that, a door near the back of the hanger slid up to reveal a long corridor and a figure in the doorway.

Pascoe's first thought at seeing this figure was that it was an older version of an installation monitor, which raised the question of whether or not the Halberd was actually inhabited. It was a large, purple, jar-shaped droid with a rectangular, yellow visor. It had four segments rotating around its base and it was hovering.

"Sir, orders?" the sole female marine requested.

"Stand down sergeant, Shan, what is that thing?" Pascoe asked.

"It appears to be a droid of some kind. Maybe _'that thing'_, is your welcome party sir," Shan replied.

"I do hope you're right Shan, because it's heading straight for us," Pascoe admitted.

"Welcome to the Battleship Halberd Commander Samuel T. Pascoe. I am Javelin Knight, Meta-Knight of Dreamland. I will guide you to the bridge," the small droid explained in a nasally, robotic voice, "Please, follow me."

The small droid turned around and led them through the door whence it came. On the way past, Pascoe noticed the height of the locking mechanism for the door; it came to about the height of his hip, he'd have to crouch down in order to use the controls; he stored this piece of information away for future reference.

The group navigated numerous corridors and elevators, until they must have reached the top of the ship. When they had been near the back of the ship, they had heard a low humming sound and what sounded like Warthogs driving back and forth all over the place. Apart from these sounds, there seemed to be no signs of life, further backing up Pascoe's theory.

They reached one, last corridor heading towards the front of the ship, and the door at the end slid open for them. None of them knew what they were expecting to find, but they knew that this wasn't it.

The décor was the same as the rest of the ship, but the large view screen and number of controls clearly indicated that they had reached the bridge. Although they hadn't had any troubles getting through the doorways, they suddenly felt much too tall to fit inside the ship; the highest controls came up to about mid-waist height, and the large window went from there to a little over head height of an Elite. Just in front of this windscreen was a wooden ships wheel.

Strutting about the room, squawking orders to everybody else, could have been no other than Captain Vul. Pascoe mentally congratulated himself on his parrot guess, it wasn't far off. Vul was a four foot tall, tan coloured bird wearing regal captain's garb. Stranger than him, was the fact that he wasn't the strangest creature in the room. Various, smaller figures were dotted about the bridge, ignoring the Captain and looking towards the newcomers. Something that Pascoe thought was note-worthy was the fact that none of them had legs; their feet were attached straight to their bodies.

Vul finally noticed that nobody was paying him any kind of attention, and snapped "Are you idiots listening to me?" He saw everybody else looking _up_ towards the entrance and spun around, squawking in surprise when he registered the size of their guests. He recovered quickly to address them, "Commander Pascoe I presume, I am Captain Vul," he then ordered the rest of the bridge, "Stop gawking and introduce yourselves."

Two sword wielding, armoured creatures stepped forward. The slightly taller one was primarily turquoise in colour and the other was green. The former's helmet stuck out over its back and had ridges down the centre. If it had a face, it was lost in the darkness that the mask provided. The green one had a red tassel that sat at the back of its helmet. A pink mask covered its entire face.

It was the green one who spoke first, "Eh cor enarge n er, nigh Blade."

A few of the Halberd's other crew members sniggered while Pascoe was at a loss of how to respond, but it wasn't him that they seemed to find humorous. It looked as though the green one had just openly slighted Captain Vul. How? He didn't know, but the Captain looked like he was about to lay an egg.

One of the Elites stepped forward at this point and growled, "You should show more respect to you superiors."

Pascoe cringed; he didn't know how these people would react to being spoken to in that manner, especially from a guest on their ship. He was relieved when they all seemed to shrug it off, with the exception of a little orange guy who gave a timid jump at the growl.

However, Captain Vul had something to say, "Now _that_ is the sort of respect that I want from _you_ lot. It's what a commanding officer deserves," he said with a nod of approval.

"And that is the sort of respect that you would have, _if _you were the commanding officer," said, what sounded like, a deep, Spanish accent from the doorway behind the group of visitors. They all turned to acknowledge this newcomer.

X

The link from the bridge to the Heavy Lobster had been playing up recently, there hadn't been anything done about it because it hadn't been needed; Meta Knight had needed to manually shut down its defence mechanism so that it wouldn't attack the 'Pelican' when it entered the hanger. Sword or Blade could have done it just fine, but he had liked the position that it put him in; he could keep an eye on this potential threat, without them knowing about it. It was what he did best.

When the passengers of the Pelican stepped out, he had allowed his eyes to gain a hint of red to them. Why was it, almost everything in the universe, had to be bigger than him? It caused him to have to work incredibly hard to maintain a position of intimidation. Add to that, the lack of a neck and a mask that covered the top of his eyes made it difficult to look up. Needless to say that he wasn't impressed when the shortest of the group must have been well over three times his height.

They had enough wits about them to come armed, although Meta Knight himself wasn't familiar as to what they were armed with. They also had enough trust to keep them lowered. But maybe it wasn't trust; if he had been the one to take a group of his own followers to a mysterious ship, he certainly wouldn't trust it. Perhaps they were just as baffled by the situation as his own crew were; they needed the information that the Halberd possessed just as much as it was the other way around. He concluded that they hadn't come here to start a fight; as such they hadn't wanted to look like it. They were merely prepared for his own attack against _them_.

He had trailed them to the bridge without being seen, although he came close when one of the large ones at the back might have felt his presence; it had turned to check over its shoulder, in the exact direction that he had been only a moment before. He was sure to make note of this.

When they had entered the bridge, Meta Knight had come to stand in the doorway behind them. His own crew were much too distracted with the new arrivals to take note of him, so he was able to observe the goings on without being a part of them. Their visitors had only stood anxiously while Vul had attempted to make proper introductions. Their leader, Pascoe, had nodded at the acknowledgment of his name and had cringed slightly when the larger one at the back, the one that had almost spotted him, had spoken presumably out of turn. He himself had misgivings about Blade undermining Vul's authority, not for the bird, but for the impression that it gave to this group from the Deathrod. It seemed as though they hadn't understood exactly what Blade had said, but had gotten the gist from the rest of the knights' reactions.

It was difficult to determine the impression that the Commander and his group had gotten from his crew, as they seemed much too concerned with the impression that they were giving out. Currently though, they seemed to be having trouble with that. Meta Knight decided that now was a good time to step in; as this was going nowhere.

X

The laid-back attitude of the Halberd's crew instantly vanished and was replaced with the respect that Vul couldn't achieve. The Captain himself attempted to explain his way out of the situation that he seemed to now have, with what looked to be his superior, "Sir Meta Knight, I was just explaining to the knights about the proper manners that they should show in front our guests." He directed the last part at the green one who had started it.

The small creature in the doorway had a blue cape wrapped around itself with a tall collar. When it released the cape to move into the room, Pascoe could see that its body was a dark blue, spherical shape with purple feet. It wore grey shoulder armour over its short arms, and a large circular, metal mask shielded all but its glowing, golden eyes from view. A gold sword hilt, embedded with a large ruby, rested at his side.

"Thank you Captain, it is appreciated," Meta Knight said with a deliberately weary tone, as he made his way through to the bird. As he reached him, he said in a lower voice, "the Wheelies are getting agitated, they seem to know that something's up. I need you to rotate their courses and settle them down, before they get out again."

"Yes, of course sir," Vul responded and hurried out of the room. Having successfully gotten rid of Vul, Meta Knight turned to address Pascoe's group.

"I extend my apologies for not having met you here. There was urgent maintenance required for you to be able to successfully enter the hanger. I am Meta Knight, leader of the Meta-Knights and Battleship Halberd," he said with a slight bow.

Pascoe wasn't quite sure how to act here. He knew that he was expected to be entirely professional, but he wanted to be on comfortable terms with these aliens, and they seemed to be pretty laid back in what was a very important situation.

He decided on, "It's good to finally meet you, I am Commander Pascoe," he knelt down, offering his hand to shake. He thought he saw a flash of red go through Meta Knight's eyes as he hesitated. Pascoe internally panicked; there was no reason for this being to know what a handshake was; he was making himself look like a fool in front of everybody in the room. He was then relieved when Meta Knight took his hand after only a moment.

"Likewise," he said.


End file.
